cookies – Bake & Bite

Cookies & Biscuits

Chocolate Chip Cookies

You can’t go wrong with these brown butter double chocolate chip cookies!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Ingredients

110 gram butter
150 gram brown sugar
75 gram caster sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200 gram all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cacao powder (preferably Dutch processed cacao and unsweetened)
2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee
200 gram chocolate chips

Instructions

Put the butter in a small saucepan and brown the butter. It will bubble and splatter so be careful. Keep the pan moving or keep stirring. When it starts foaming it's almost done, stir the pan to see how brown it is. You will smell a delicious nutty butter flavour. This takes about 5 minutes.

Let the butter cool in the pan for about 10 minutes.

Weigh the butter by pouring it in a bowl on a weighing scale. Add water until you reach the 110 grams again (usually around 1 tablespoon)

Cover the bowl and let cool in the fridge for about 15-30 min.

After 15-30 min: Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Beat the butter and sugars in a stand mixer until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes)

Add vanilla extract and egg

Sift flour, baking soda, coffee, cacao powder and salt in a separate bowl

Add this to the butter mixture, and on a low speed, mix these ingredients together until a cookie dough forms.

Fold in the chocolate chips

Let the cookie dough harden/rest in the fridge for about an hour (or longer).

I use a scale to weigh the cookie dough per cookie; 45-50 gram per cookie.

Roll them into little balls and place them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. About 6 per baking sheet.

Bake the cookies for 11 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven.

Leave the cookies to cool a bit on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wired rack to cook completely... if you can wait that long.

Notes

The cacao powder and instant espresso coffee are optional. I added them to give the cookies a more intense chocolate flavour. This recipe makes about 16 cookies (50 gram cookie dough per cookie)

Cookies & Biscuits

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Delicious and easy recipe to make lemon crinkle cookies. They are soft and cake-like cookies with a hint of lemon.

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Ingredients

250 gram all purpose flour (2 cups)
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
115 gram butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
few drops of yellow food colouring (optional)
1/2 cup icing sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Sift flour, salt and baking powder in a medium size bowl

Cream together the butter and sugar in a bowl of stand mixer

When the butter mixture is white and creamy, add the eggs, one at the time.

Add vanilla extract, lemon juice and a few drops of yellow food colouring and mix until combined

Slowly add the dry ingredients and fold in gently until you don't see any flour.

Put the dough in the fridge for at least an hour

Form little balls of dough, about 2-3 cm and roll these generously in icing sugar

Place the balls (about 6 per sheet) on a baking sheet lined with baking paper

Bake the cookies for about 10 min in the preheated oven.

Let cool for a bit on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack

Notes

It could do with a bit more lemon flavour so next time I will probably add a teaspoon of fresh lemon zest or lemon extract to the mixture.

Speculaasbrokken

‘Speculaasbrokken‘ are another Dutch cookie that I love, the taste is SO addictive. It is baked as one big slab and you break it up in big crunchy chunks afterwards. They are basically a thick version of the speculaas cookies. The ‘speculaas’ spices are a mixture of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, cloves, white pepper, ginger, cardamom and aniseed.

Speculaasbrokken

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Ingredients

200 gram all purpose flour
100 gram brown sugar
100 gram butter, diced
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon egg, beaten (save the rest for the egg wash)
4 teaspoons 'speculaas' spices (or to taste)
1 teaspoon baking powder
milk (optional)

Instructions

Sift flour, baking powder and speculaas spices in to a bowl.

Add the rest of the ingredients, except the milk

Knead the ingredients together until it forms a dough and it comes away from the sides.

If the dough is too dry, add milk. One tablespoon at the time (my dough only needed 1 tablespoon milk).

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let cool in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius and line a baking sheet with baking paper.

After 30 minutes, roll out the dough until it's about 0.5 cm thick. You can roll out any shape you want.

Glaze the dough with the egg wash (you can decorate it with almonds if you like).

Bake for 25-30 minutes in the preheated oven.

Leave on the baking sheet until cool.

Break the speculaas slab into big chunks.

Cookies & Biscuits/ Dutch Recipes

Spritsen

These delicious buttery cookies are called ‘Sprits koekjes‘ or ‘Spritz cookies’. A Dutch cookie that people have been making and eating since the 16th century (according to Wikipedia). You use a piping bag to pipe the cookies on to the baking sheet. You can pipe them in any shape, like I did today. I made some Christmas trees because it’s December. The cookies are super tasty and easy to make. Perfect cookie to go with your tea or coffee.

Spritsen

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Ingredients

250 gram butter, room temperature
150 gram sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
300 gram all purpose flour
a pinch of salt
200 gram chocolate for decoration (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius

Beat the butter and sugar light and fluffy (a few minutes)

Add the vanilla extract and the egg and mix till a smooth batter

Add flour and salt and mix until combined and you don't see any white streaks of flour.

Scoop the batter in a piping bag and pipe any shape cookie you want (google 'spritsen' to see the most common sprits shape) on baking sheet lined with baking paper.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.

Leave the 'spritsen' on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cook completely.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl above hot water and dip the cookies in to the chocolate.

Let cool/harden on some baking paper.

Cookies & Biscuits/ Dutch Recipes

Kletskoppen

Macadamia Lace Cookies or ‘Kletskoppen‘ are popular cookies in the Netherlands. They go perfect with your cup of tea or coffee but also with some ice cream. It’s a delicious crispy and sweet cookie. Usually made with almonds or peanuts but today I made them with macadamia nuts.

Kletskoppen

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Ingredients

60 gram butter
150 gram brown sugar
3 tablespoons water
60 gram flour
60 gram macadamia nuts
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius

Melt butter in a saucepan on medium heat.

In a small bowl add the flour, salt and cinnamon and mix well

Take the saucepan of the heat when the butter is melted and add sugar. Stir till combined.

Stir in the water.

Then add the flour mixture and stir through till you don't see anymore lumps.

Chop up the nuts and mix them through the cookie batter

If the batter is still too liquid, wait a couple of minutes for it to harden a bit.

Drop about 25 mm dollops on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. They will expand quite a bit so leave plenty of space between them. I baked 6 cookies per sheet.

Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for about 6-8 minutes.

Let them cool completely on the baking sheet.

Notes

Be careful, do not touch the cookies with your hands when they come out of the oven. They are very hot. This recipe will make about 24 cookies.

Cookies & Biscuits

Coconut Shortbread Biscuits

Here in New Zealand you can buy ‘Griffins Macaroon Chocolate Biscuits. A rich coconut macaroon coated in delicious creamy milk chocolate. They are really delicious so I thought to give it a try and make them myself. I found a recipe for coconut shortbread biscuits and got baking. These biscuits are not the same but it’s close. Perhaps even better!

Coconut Shortbread Biscuits

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Ingredients

200 gram all-purpose flour
100 gram icing powder
100 gram butter
2 tablespoon egg
55 gram desiccated coconut
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Cream butter in a bowl light and fluffy together with the icing sugar

Add vanilla extract and egg

Fold in the flour and coconut and mix it until a cookie dough forms.

Make a flat disc of the dough, wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to cool for 15 minutes

Roll out the dough into a rectangle, you might need to flour the surface.

Mix some icing sugar and coconut and sprinkle that on top of the biscuits, and with the rolling pin, gently press the coconut into the dough.

Cut the dough in their shapes, squares, rectangles etc. whatever you want.

Transfer the biscuits to a baking pan lined with baking paper

Bake the biscuits in a preheated oven for 15 minutes

Let them cool on a wire rack.

Notes

Melt some chocolate and cover the biscuits. Sprinkle some coconut on top to make them even more decadent.